While watching Joey Chestnut slobber and drool and masticate his way to another Mustard Belt in the great Coney Island Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest, pounding down 63 damp and unappealing dogs, a singular question struck me.

How many grilled and lovely hot dogs will Americans gobble down on this most American of holidays? I checked with the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, and it provided the estimate of 150 million hot dogs. The Council then provided what I think is a rather pedestrian statement: “That’s enough hot dogs to make a line from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles more than five times.”

I wanted to go further. Especially as an American. I wanted to reach for space. “Ad Astra Aspera” and all that! Reach for the stars! I began to imagine a line of hot dogs going all the way to the sun! Of course, they’d have to be spaced out a little, as the sun is only 93 million miles away.

It comes to about a hot dog every half mile or so – more like 0.6 miles. Each dog might even be visible in the darkness of space – visual aids to keep a hungry and intrepid traveler going. And there would even be the added benefit of having the sun begin to cook the dogs the closer you got to it.

And imagine how roasted they would be a few million miles from the sun, before things just vaporize or start looking like 7-11 Big Bites left too long on the rollers.

My mind wandered to other Fourth foods. Potato salad takes first place in this year’s most Googled food, being the number one search in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Kentucky, Missouri, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Baked beans came in second, Googled a lot in Michigan, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Virginia, and Washington state.

Which leads us to the beauty of the hot dog. Who on earth needs to Google how to prepare a breathtakingly gorgeous, smokey and sultry hot dog? Who among us has not masterfully prepared the same countless times?

For dogs, we don’t rely on our old Aunt Tess’s secret recipe. We’re Americans! We strike out on our own in this journey!

For me, it happened as a high school sophomore. I had long admired my father’s butter burgers, cooked in copious tablespoons of butter, the edges as crispy as any smash burger, with a fresh slice of tomato on it, and if he was feeling jaunty, a Kraft American single. Tucking into one of those with an episode of “Bonanza” starting up was a singular pleasure. I discovered entrepreneurial hot dogs years later.

For my inaugural dog, I discovered no buns in the house. No problem. I buttered a frying pan, and pressed two slices of bread onto it. When they toasted, a nice, greasy sheen of yellow on one side, I placed them on the side. I sliced two hot dogs right down the middle, leaving a hinge, and pressed them down onto the pan as steam rose. I added a swirl of yellow mustard, and done! Fried bologna on steroids!

A love affair had begun. I was fourteen.

In my revery, I began to think of myself in a kind of Willy Wonkian space vessel, grabbing another dog every half mile or so and cranking up the air conditioning the closer I got to the sun.

The Fourth of July should be a time to dream.

Hope you had fun.

Koi-Fine Asian Cuisine & Lounge

I was meeting a friend for dinner at Koi, just as we’d done so many times in the past. It had been an exhausting day, and my appetite -even for Asian food-was challenged at best. I studied the menu, looking for something that would be as comforting as mac ’n cheese or meatloaf or warm apple pie with ice cream.

“You know,” I said to the waiter, “if this were an Americanized Chinese restaurant, I’d order egg foo young.”

He smiled. “We can make it for you,” he said. “No problem.”

I smiled back. Egg foo young and a glass of Riesling… my stress level plummeted.*

Koi’s egg foo young was so good that I’ve ordered it time and again, often as part of a family-style dinner. And, actually, a family-style dinner is a good way to sample Koi’s menu, which features dishes from eight of China’s regional cuisines, in addition to sushi, sashimi, maki rolls, nigiri, chirashi, teriyaki, and both Pad Thai and Thai basil fried rice. That’s a lot of culinary ground to cover, but owner Sandy Chen’s family tree includes a long line of professional chefs.

Now 54, she’s been working in the restaurant business since shortly after her family emigrated to the United States when she was 16. She bussed tables at New Diamond, a mom-and-pop Chinese restaurant in Highland Park, as a teenager, followed by front-of-the-house stints at T’ang Dynasty and House of Hunan, trend-setting restaurants that introduced Chicagoans to regional Chinese cuisine.

Koi is Chen’s second restaurant; the first was the eponymous Chen’s in Chicago’s Lakeview East neighborhood. Preferences changed during Chen’s eighteen year-run. Spice levels escalated as diners developed an appetite for hotter food, and -at the same time- sushi and its relatives went mainstream, as did Pad Thai, poke and edamame.

Chen opened Koi in 2004. Not only was the menu more diverse than at Chen’s, but the restaurant’s location was more convenient to her home in Wilmette. Having survived both the recession of 2008-2009 and the worst of the Pandemic, Koi continues to expand its culinary horizons.
Consider the options.

If, for example, you have a taste for fish, you can order a whole red snapper in a spicy Szechwan sauce rife with garlic and chilis or salmon with black bean sauce or sole paired with eggplant, asparagus and a sauce spicy enough to merit a single chili emoji or whole snapper in a mix of black vinegar, soy sauce and sugar or steamed Dover sole with scallions, cilantro, soy, broccoli and glass noodles.

And then there are the specials: Happy Hour from 4:30-6, Dim Sum brunch on weekends, $6 cocktails on Wednesday, half-priced bottles of non-sparkling wines on Thursday, and half-price on a specific maki roll until 9pm on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

And, of course, there’s the egg foo young. It’s not on the menu, so you have to ask for it. Trust me. It’s definitely comfort food Chinese-style. And given the news, we all need a lot of comforting.

Koi Fine Asian Cuisine & Lounge, 624 Davis Street, Evanston 847.866.6969

*As it turns out, egg foo young has authentic Chinese roots, and the dish-in various iterations-is served throughout the Chinese diaspora.

Sushi ComboHot Pepper Chicken

When you think of Highland Park, what first comes to your mind? Ravinia? Lake Michigan? John Hughes movies? High-priced homes on Sheridan Road? Whatever it is, they’ve now moved down the list a spot or two.

Highland Park, Illinois is now the latest town to have a mass shooting.

My family lived in Highland Park for two decades. My siblings and I are all graduates of Highland Park High School. While I wouldn’t call it a sleepy little town, it certainly is closer to a Mayberry existence than Chicago-esque. It was among the last places I figured that an event like today’s shootings would occur.

Maybe I was naive. I was definitely naive. I’m not anymore. As I write this, six are dead and more than twenty have been injured. If this can happen in Highland Park, at a parade, on the 4th of July, it can happen anywhere. It will happen anywhere.

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